Analyses of God beliefs, atheism, religion, faith, miracles, evidence for religious claims, evil and God, arguments for and against God, atheism, agnosticism, the role of religion in society, and related issues.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Lots of religious believers now believe that humans and life on earth evolved. It turns out, they claim, that natural selection is God’s means of achieving his ends. Furthermore, that evolution was aided from time to time by God giving it a little nudge when necessary.

Now it’s thought by many people who are religious that the physical constants that physics has found in nature—the strong nuclear force, the weak force, Planck’s constant, the mass of the top quark, and so on—are all part of God’s doing. God is responsible for the narrow range of values for the laws of nature that keep our universe on the knife edge that makes life possible. It turns out that God has fine tuned it all for our benefit.

When we discover that the universe is 15 billion years old and not 6,000, and that humanity has been around for 100,000 years and didn’t start with Adam and Eve, they acknowledge (reluctantly) “yes, that’s right. That was God’s plan. Isn’t the breadth of God’s plan sweeping?”

By many believers’ reckoning, the Big Bang, which wasn’t even postulated until a few decades ago by cosmologists, turns out to be God’s means of creation. (Never mind that no one in the history of any of these religious traditions offered any hint that it occurred until after we defied religious authority and discovered it on our own.)

It would appear that every conceivable discovery is interpreted as evidence of God’s existence and God’s transcendent power, knowledge, and goodness. And no possible developments in our empirical investigations will be accepted as counter evidence. It’s a sort of conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theorist takes everything that happens to be more proof that the government is watching him. The fact that he can’t get any pictures of the black helicopters surveiling him just shows how stealthy they are. The fact that no one around him lets on that they are spying on him just shows how good they are at covering their tracks. The fact that we cannot find compelling evidence that links the CIA and the mob as conspirators in the John F. Kennedy’s assassination itself shows that the CIA and the mob did it because no one else could have so effectively concealed their scheme. But with God, everything we discover, including the fact that there appears to be no need to invoke any supernatural agency to explain any phenomena we analyze, is taken to indicate just how transcendent God is. Even the fact that the universe appears to be just the sort of place you’d expect if there was no powerful, knowledgeable, and caring supernatural being itself is taken to indicate that that sort of being has good reasons for making its presence completely undetectable.

In all seriousness, if God were to build the universe and then give us a book, a doctrine, and a religion with which to worship him, and if all of the remarkable things about God’s role in the creation and sustenance of the universe that believers claim are true, then wouldn’t we have expected to find some hint about them from God, from his religion, from his book, or from his believers before they were discovered by science? In every, science forges ahead through hard work, insight, and struggle, to discover some truth about the world. And then, after science has done all the heavy lifting, the religious dogmatists snatch the discovery, “Of course, we knew that all along because that’s a part of God’s remarkable creation. It all just suggests more praise to God’s glory for his universe.”

There remain many unanswered questions in science now. We aren’t sure about the existence of the Higgs-Boson, or the graviton, or the relationship of the gravitational force to the other fundamental forces. We don’t have a clear, developed picture of the origins of consciousness in evolutionary history. We don’t have adequate information to ascertain the prevalence of life in the universe at large. But presumably with time, hard work, and human ingenuity, we will find answers to all of these questions.

So here is the challenge for the believer. If all of those future discoveries in science are going to be co-opted and neatly adapted to show that God is such a profound being, then we should be able to find some indicator of these mechanisms of God’s handiwork in religion, religious doctrine, or the words of God himself without science to do all the hard work. If the four fundamental forces—gravity, strong, weak, and electromagnetic—are all God’s means of constructing the universe, after all, then why can’t we find any indication of that anywhere in any religious doctrine or tradition before physics discovered them. If evolution was the method whereby God brought life into the universe as so many Americans now believe, then why can’t we find even the slightest hint of it in any religious source or the word of God prior to Darwin’s hard fought battle with those same believers? If the intelligent design hypothesis about God’s interventions in evolutionary history is correct, then why did no religious source ever give any indication of it until the 1990s? If viruses, not evil demon possession, were the source of disease all along and part of God’s plan, why has religious doctrine always been so clearly in favor of demons? If the abundant amounts of apparently pointless suffering and death in the world has always been part of God’s plan to build moral character, then did we not get any indication that this was true from religious sources until after atheists like William Rowe in the 1970s argued that pointless evil is evidence that there is no God?

The answer should be obvious. With every new development and empirical discovery, many believers (usually, after resisting the truth with all their might,) construct an ad hoc explanation that allows them to co-opt that discovery and contort it into their worldview and use it to their advantage. That their worldview previously contained no indicators of what is now taken to be obvious because of what science has forced them to accept is conveniently written off as metaphor, discounted, neglected, or forgotten. “Adam and Eve? Oh, we never really believed that literally.” “The earth is only 6,000 years old? That’s so quaint—it isn’t what we really believe.” All of the ad hoc re-engineering and reverse conspiracy gymnastics in order to salvage an Iron Age ideology is gross intellectual dishonesty when it is clear that the space left for the God of the gaps is rapidly shrinking.

Either the universe is as we would have expected to it to be according to traditional theism or it is not. Believers are in a very difficult position with every new discovery or invention that doesn’t fit nicely within the traditional theistic picture. If they argue that the world as we are finding it is exactly as we would have expected it to be on the theistic hypothesis, then they need to explain how it is that theism has not anticipated so many of the results we have found. They need to explain how it is that the world has turned out to be so obviously not exactly as traditional theism described it. Why has traditional theism been blindsided by every important scientific development for 500 years? Worse, why has traditional theism viciously resisted and tried to erase them from our collective consciousness all of those same developments at every stage? If a 3 billion year evolutionary process was God’s modus operandi all along, then why is it that hundreds of millions of believers still insist that evolution didn’t occur and that it was all created in its present form a few hundred generations ago? If the Big Bang was God’s act of creation, then why is it such news to those whose God has given the one, true access to perfect knowledge of reality through the Bible? Apparently these manifestations of God’s knowledge and power aren’t as obvious in his plan as the revisionist believers would like.

If all of this is all part of God’s infinite wisdom and creation, why didn’t God and all of his followers seem to have a clue about the rotation of the earth, biological history, geology, physics, chemistry, morality, and the origins of life? The story they did tell was the one that we would have expected Iron Age humans with no scientific grasp of the universe to give about the nature and origin of humans and the universe.

When the members of that tradition now try to backpedal and give God the credit ex post facto for the complexity, and breadth of the empirical world discovered by those who broke from religious authority, the hedging is clear. They’re re-engineering their story to fit the facts and trying to insist that that’s what they believed all along. But as we discover more and more about the way the world is—in stark contrast to the theistic picture—it gets harder and harder for the believer to continue this ad hoc revisionism while the rest of us keep a straight face. Consider the popular view that the “days” described in the Genesis creation story may have lasted longer than our days, so maybe life did evolve for 3 billion years on earth and Genesis is actually giving an accurate record of that. “Yeah, yeah, that’s what we believed all along. We knew that life evolved and humans came from monkeys from the start. Yeah, that’s the ticket.” Never mind that in Genesis the order of primordial events contradicts what we now know about the development of life and events on earth on a long list of points.

If, on the other hand, believers acknowledge that what we have discovered about the universe, the earth, and life on earth is not consistent with the picture that traditional theism had us believe, then they have several other very difficult problems. If the world is not as theism described it to be, then all of that counter evidence weighs heavily against the plausibility of traditional theism and any doctrine that finds its origin in it. That is, believing today has its roots in believing from the past. Without the inception of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam in their historical contexts and the sweeping social institutions that they have become, it’s hard to see what would motivate a modern theism. If your belief doesn’t trace its origins back to the advent of Christianity, then what exactly is there to recommend it? It’s not that there can be no independent grounds upon which to rest a modern version of theism. But the vast historical establishment of Christianity has been a substantial factor in leading people to believe. The fact that so many others for so long have believed, and that they have passed that believe on to us through our education, our culture, our churches, and our personal and social lives is not insignificant. If it turns out that historical belief has little or nothing real to stand on, then what is left for a modern human who knows about these discoveries and scientific developments to build their belief upon?

Take a belief in witchcraft as a historical parallel. 2,000 years ago, 1,000 years ago, and 500 years ago, the view that witchcraft was real was pervasive. Many elements of our culture and our heritage were built around it. Our social, legal, economic, and religious institutions acknowledged it. Everyone knew that witches and magical powers were real. But science has shown us the light. At one point, for a person to believe in magic was understandable, even excusable, given that so many people believed in it and since there seemed to be so much corroboration of it in the culture. Someone in a village in Massachusetts in the 1600s could hardly be blamed for believing given the context they were in. But today we don’t have that excuse. And without all of the push to believe coming from the culture around us, the remaining believers appear to be uneducated cranks, ideologues, or counter-culture dropouts.

So it stretches credulity beyond the limits of charity for us to accept the revisionist believer’s story. They can’t defend the claim that the universe that we’ve discovered is just as we would have expected it to be coming from God. Our discoveries fly in the face of too many of the traditional articles of faith. And if the believer acknowledges that traditional theism seems to have gotten so many basics wrong about the nature of the world, that weighs heavily against the plausibility of traditional or modern theism.

There’s one other much less appealing alternative for the believer. They can dig in and insist that all of the discoveries that we have made about the history of the universe, Earth, and life on earth are mistaken if they are not consistent with the traditional theistic story. The earth really was created in its present form 6,000 years ago. All humanity came from Adam and Eve. There really was a great flood that wiped out all life that wasn’t on the ark. There really was a deity who visited a small group of people in the middle east 2,000 years ago who performed miracles and who wants us all to believe in his existence. And so on. But this science denying believer is in a worse position than either of the ones we considered above. This believer has to defend the reasonableness of all of these claims against the mounting evidence produced by centuries of scientific work by the greatest minds in history. This believer has to outperform the smartest biologists in history by arguing that all of their scientific work is mistaken. This believer has to claim expertise beyond that of the entire historical academic community. This believer needs to know enough about cellular biology, carbon dating, radioactive dating, geology, paleontology, sociology, psychology, physics, chemistry, and cosmology to be able to reasonably argue that the conclusions that the experts in all of those fields have reached are all wrong. This believer has to out-science the scientific community and claim that really, when you do good science, what it shows is that the Bible and traditional theism was right all along.

So the believer is deeply mired in a paradox. There’s the God of traditional theism and the story it tells about what the world is, and there is the account of what the world is that our hard work in science has given us. The believer can argue that the two accounts actually don’t diverge at all and that what we’ve discovered in science was all a manifestation of God’s plan all along. The problem is that traditional theism has not anticipated or concurred with the picture of the world science has given us. Or the believer can concede that the plan and God of traditional theism don’t jive with the world we have found. That significantly undermines the reasonableness of belief that is based upon traditional theism. Or finally, the believer can stubbornly insist that what we thought we knew about the world in an Iron Age religion is in fact accurate down to the last detail and all of what we think we have discovered is in fact mistaken. The easiest way to extricate themselves from this hopeless mess, of course, is to just give up this notion that there is such a being as God and join the rest of us in the 21 century.

17 comments:

I am not an atheist but I love these 2 statements and agree with them:"The story they did tell was the one that we would have expected Iron Age humans with no scientific grasp of the universe to give about the nature and origin of humans and the universe."

"The problem is that traditional theism has not anticipated or concurred with the picture of the world science has given us."

Religious types/ believers have often been guilty of not thinking critically about the things you deal with in this post. Believers have often held dogmatically to the official party line about origins and mechanics of the universe without searching the answers out themselves. So I agree with you on those points.

Yet at the same time, just because believers in God don't have the best science and aren't the most discerning about scientific things that doesn't mean there is not a God. It means religious believers are ignorant about these things.

I would challenge you to look at the book of Genesis not as a scientific textbook, but as it was meant to be read/ heard by its original audience - a polemic against the paganism of Moses' times.

Jamie, in fact, I am arguing that if believers don't have "the best science" and aren't "the most discerning about scientific things," then that does give us good reason to think there is no God. At least, the God they would endorse isn't real. Think about it. It's a serious blow to the credibility of any religious movement claiming to have a document directly from the creator of the universe and the master of all reality, but that document either makes seriously mistaken claims about the world and its origins, or it fails altogether to mention so many important facts about the world. If the Bible is the perfect, unerring word of God, then the claims it makes will not be mistaken. And if the Bible is not the perfect unerring word of God, then belief in God that is based upon that assumption is unfounded. The Christians themselves have raised the bar here. They want to claim that the God of the Bible is the one true God, the creator of the universe. So if it turns out that their source of information about God and the universe is grossly mistaken, then we've got good reasons to think that such a God does not exist. The only grounds that one will have left to appeal to in order to justify theism will have to be non-Christian and non-Biblical. Do we have reasons like those? That are independent of the religious traditions that have so badly misdescribed the real world? If their ultimate creator of the universe can't get the age of the universe, the history of life on earth, 10th grade physics and chemistry right, then why would we continue to give their claims any credence at all? And once that lynch pin to belief is gone, what would lead us to continue to insist that maybe there is a God, just not that one? Once we get the truth about the Tooth Fairy, is it reasonable to persist, "Well, you may have disproven THAT Tooth Fairy, but you haven't shown that no Tooth Fairy exists".

I don't think it makes sense or is naturally possible for something to come from nothing. It appears to be more likely that there always was just something.

Either the universe has existed in some form (not necessarily the present form) for eternity, or else it had a beginning. Both are tough to conceptualize. I don't know what you are basing your "more likely" statement on - do you think there is actual evidence impinging on the calculation of probabilities, or does it just seem more intuitive to you?

In either case, there is no rational basis for giving the credit to any god.

It just may be that we as humans are not capable of realizing time as it actually is. We are used to things having borders and space beyond that having a border.The word "infinity" comes to play when we can't understandtime and space. Let's face it we just don't understand how big and how small things can be. As to some god(s) having anything to do with it, it just doesn't compute. A creator would have been evident to everybody by now. Seen him/her lately?

MattI assume the 'source' you refer to is the Bible. The problem is not the Bible but how one views it.

Fundamentalists (biblical literalists) who say the earth is 6000 arrive at that number by counting generations listed in the Bible. But do the lists of generations include every generation and are they accurate according the modern view of accuracy? There are (I think) 5 lists of ten generations in the book of Genesis. Yes those people all lived and were all a part of the same family trees, but this is more a literary tool than anything else. So there might be 'omissions' or 'innacuracies' but to the ancient person, the story telling in a certain form was the important thing.

In dating the earth, here's an example: Jericho, the city destroyed in the book of Joshua. Archeologists have dated the oldest parts or excavations at Jericho to 8000 B.C. The city of Damascus has things dating to 10,000 B.C. So there is a clear contradiction between the date Fundamentalists use (6000 B.C) and the real age of the earth and the universe.

But then, The Bible never makes claims about the earth's age or the universe's age no matter if people try to say it does. The Bible isn't concerned with those things. The Pentateuch (first 5 books) were written sometime around 1600 or 1500 B.C. The Bible is not a textbook of any kind science (astronomy, geology, etc). The ancient writers would have no knowledge of science as it observes things in this day and age.

I am a Bible believer, but I also know how to distinguish between types of literature. I know there are parts of the Bible which are meant to be taken literally, and others that are meant metaphorically. Having said that, I do believe the Genesis account is an good solid account of creation, so long as we view it the context of its original writing. We have to keep this idea at the forefront of any discussion about the Bible - look at the Bible in its original context and try to think like the original writers and readers/ hearers.

The Genesis creation account is NOT scientific. Its obvious to us now. But the point being made in Genesis is not laying out dogma about origins; the point is that there is one God who created the natural world rather than a pantheon of gods - sun god, moon god, river god, forest god, etc. The Genesis account parallels other ancient creation stories, but it is unique in that it points people to one God.

Anyways, to bring it back to 'source' - when you talk about 'source' lets flesh that out. Let's try to figure out what the Bible says - not just what people say it says and what you think about what the Bible says (or what I think for that matter). But the goal should be to see if we can figure out what its actually saying. sorry I wrote so much.

I'm not giving any credit to some god (I don't believe in god or God). I'm just basing the "more likely" on what appears to be that all that is natural has been around for infinity. Logically it might be possible (I'm not sure) that something can come from nothing (I doubt that that is logically possible, but I'm open[for fun]).

Something tough to conceptualize has nothing to do with what is most likely to be true or simply what is or is not true. Either the universe was "born" or it was not. There is no valid and sound scientific theory to account for something coming from nothing. I'm sure we all know that in certain forms of literature misnomers occur (especially when speaking to the lay audience). Singularities are breakdowns in theory according to many physicists.

For example: "Mathematicians use the term 'singularity' to indicate that equations are failing. The big bang is referred to as the initial singularity because Einstein's equations of general relativity break down when the temperature and energy density become infinite, as Einstein himself recognized, and their description of the expansion of the universe ceases to be valid (Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok. Endless Universe - Beyond the Big Bang. 2007. Random House, Inc., New York)."

This is not loop quantum gravity by the way. And there are other books and eminent physicists who write about such as well. But hey man, sure some or many great physicists have the "universe was born" belief as well, and possibly based on both their theories in combination with their personal philosophy.

"When equations develop singularities, physicists normally interpret this to mean that the equations are being extended into a regime where they can no longer be trusted, and that the laws of physics they were using must be replaced by improved ones capable of making sens of the situation...(Turok uses an old singularity problem in physics that was solved using non-singularity methods)."

The Genesis account parallels other ancient creation stories, but it is unique in that it points people to one God.

Are you aware that parts of Genesis refer to God as "Yahweh" (singular) and other parts refer to "Elohim" (plural)? Examples:

1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Some textual scholars claim that Genesis is a mixture of two different narratives.

darby m'grawYes I am aware of that. "Elohim" is a plural term applied to a singular entity. Lots of other things we could say here that I won't get too deep into. In short though, the Hebrews were staunch monotheists. The New Testament writers were also staunch monotheists. Does Jesus arriving on the scene and claiming to be God present a problem to them? You can search the Scriptures yourself for the answers to that.

Okay so "Yahweh" is derived from a Hebrew verb meaning 'to be'. It is the name revealed to Moses when Moses asks "who am I to say sent me?" 'I am' (Yahweh) is the answer. You can also translate it 'I am that I am' which infers a continual existence. By extension it can also take the meaning of 'the one who is with you.'

If Genesis is a mixture of 2 narratives, is that an issue? Does that affect the purpose of the book? I don't think so.

Many scholars believe that the Pentateuch was written in different parts during different time periods. The first period of writing would have been around the Exodus from Egypt (and Moses is the primary author). The 2nd around the time of King David. And the 3rd during the return of Israel from exile. So if you take the best scholars at their word, this whole block of Scripture is a mixture of writings from different time periods.

I'm reading a book right now called "Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament". There is a section that deals with development of the text and what different scholars think. Its worth checking out if you're truly interested in the subject. See if your local library has it.

If Genesis is a mixture of 2 narratives, is that an issue? Does that affect the purpose of the book? I don't think so.

Whose purpose? And if one of those narratives was polytheistic, then yes, it affects the interpretation which you claim as the purpose of the book, that it delivers a clear monotheistic creation story.

darby m'graw:good point about the mixing of mono- and polytheistic sources. yeah, that would affect the interpretation a lot. I don't have proof in one direction or the other. but I'm not a textual critic either. thanks for good dialogue.

Apropos an article ‘Looking for a higher theory of everything’ Interaction: Michio Kaku published in Times of India, New Delhi on seventh June 2008 at page number fourteen. I have written following two papers which may lead to the realisation for a higher theory of everything:

(i) Gravitation Force is the Ultimate Creator, (1st Int. Conf. on Revival of Traditional Yoga, Lonavla Yoga Institute, Lonavla, January, 2006) (ii) In Scientific Terminology, Source of Gravitational Wave is God(2nd World Congress on Vedic Science, BHU, Varanasi, Feb 2007) I have presented these two papers at the two different International Conferences. I am now submitting some views for being considered for Unified Field Theory

From Scriptures:The Current which manifested in the beginning of the creation is the Current of Sabda (Sound) and of Chaitanya (Consciousness). From whom that Current issued forth is known as Soami (Supreme Being). This Current, by turning back can merge again in the Holy Feet of Supreme Being. The entire creation manifested from this current and is sustained with its energy and when the Current of the Holy Feet is withdrawn, the creation ceases to exist.This Current of the Holy Feet is the Reservoir of all energy, tastes and pleasures, knowledge, skill, shapes, forces and light etc. etc. and of the entire creation, is also the Creator of all of them.

From Science:Gravitation Force is the cause of manifestation of the creation (birth of planets, stars), its sustenance and when it is withdrawn towards centre or source the entire creation ceases to exist. Photons have originated from gravitons. In black holes photons merge into gravitons. In Black Holes, Gravitational Force is so high that it does not allow even light to escape. What does it mean then? It simply means that the gravitational force at black-holes attracts light towards it with much greater velocity than the speed of light. In fact, all forces including electromagnetic force, material force (strong and weak nuclear force) all merge into gravitational force in black-holes and becomes one force there and when the creational process starts again from a Black-Hole all the forces appear (manifest) again and descends downwards to create billions of stars, planets, satellite, asteroids and various life forms.

Hence it can be assumed that the Current of Chaitanya (Consciousness) and Gravitational Wave are the two names of the same Supreme Essence (Seed) which has brought forth the entire creation.

Anirudh Kumar Satsangi,

All cosmological researches should be conducted keeping in view of the following philosophical facts:It has been stated in Bible (John I-1) “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,”The Radhasoami Religion also tells that, the ‘Word’ mentioned above is in fact Current of Sound or Current of Consciousness or Prime Current of Spirituality which was issued forth from its Source, or Creator or God. This Current has later on produced light and other forces. The scientists are discussing these days about dark energy which constitute about 96% of the entire universe which is not known to us. Only 4% part of the universe is known to us by all scientific means. In fact this 96% invisible portion of the universe is the vast expanse of spirituality which can be designated as field of gravitational waves in scientific terms. Visible portion of the universe (4%) consists of consciousness (gravitational force), mental force (electromagnetic waves) and material force (strong and weak nuclear force).Body = Nuclear Force (weak as well as strong)Mind = Electromagnetic Force.Consciousness = Gravitation Force.According to Radhasoami Religion the whole Universe can be sub-divided into three grand divisions viz.1. Region of Pure Spirituality2. Region of Subtle Maya3. Region of Gross MayaNuclear forces dominate Region of Gross Maya (Gross Material Region), Electro-magnetic forces dominate Region of Subtle Maya (Subtle Material Region) and Gravitational Force dominates Pure Spiritual Region. This is the only Truth which can be verified scientifically and can be termed as ‘higher theory for everything’. This also supports the statement of Sir Sahabji Maharaj the goal of science – Truth; the goal of philosophy – Ultimate Reality; and the goal of religion – God are the three names of same supreme essence.1. Many things are common between Current of Consciousness and Gravitational Wave.1. Current of consciousness can not be seen by any means and gravitational wave can also not be seen.2. Current of consciousness is the weakest force on earth. Its strength goes on increasing on higher regions. Gravitational force is also very weak on earth and strong on Sun and even more stronger on black holes.3 Tendency of both current of consciousness and gravitational waves are towards their source or centre.4. Current of consciousness and gravitational force are both regarded as the creater of all the celestial and terrestrial bodies of the whole universe. They are also sustainer of these and when they turn back towards their source or centre the whole universe will collapse.Hence it can be assumed that the source of current of consciousness and gravitational wave is the same i.e. God or ultimate creator.This theory is based on scientific deduction. All other theories appear to be work of imaginative thinking and sometimes do not satisfy the criteria of scientific verification. In scientific terms it can be said that the ‘gravitons’ are the elementaryparticle which was issued forth in the beginning of the creation accompanying with sound ‘Radha’

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Atheism

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Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester. Teaching at CSUS since 1996. My main area of research and publication now is atheism and philosophy of religion. I am also interested in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and rational decision theory/critical thinking.

Quotes:

"Science. It works, bitches."

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time. But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money!"George Carlin 1937 - 2008

Many Paths, No God.

I don't go to church, I AM a church, for fuck's sake. I'm MINISTRY. --Al Jourgensen

Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, “It is a matter of faith, and above reason.”- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

If life evolved, then there isn't anything left for God to do.

The universe is not fine-tuned for humanity. Humanity is fine-tuned to the universe. Victor Stenger

Skeptical theists choose to ride the trolley car of skepticism concerning the goods that God would know so as to undercut the evidential argument from evil. But once on that trolley car it may not be easy to prevent that skepticism from also undercutting any reasons they may suppose they have for thinking that God will provide them and the worshipful faithful with life everlasting in his presence. William Rowe

Unless you're one of those Easter-bunny vitalists who believes that personality results from some unquantifiable divine spark, there's really no alternative to the mechanistic view of human nature. Peter Watts

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. E.O. Wilson

Creating humans who could understand the contrast between good and evil without subjecting them to eons of horrible suffering would be an utterly inconsequential matter for an omnipotent being. MM

The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second most important moral principle for all the generations of humanity? It would be so easy to improve upon the 10 Commandments. How about "Try not to deep fry all of your food"? Sam Harris

Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody--not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms--had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think--though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one--that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great

We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true--that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great

If atheism is a religion, then not playing chess is a hobby.

"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything--anything--be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in." Sam Harris, The End of Faith, 36.

"Only a tiny fraction of corpsesfossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water." Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 127.

One cannot take, "believing in X gives me hope, makes me moral, or gives me comfort," to be a reason for believing X. It might make me moral if I believe that I will be shot the moment I do something immoral, but that doesn't make it possible for me to believe it, or to take its effects on me as reasons for thinking it is true. Matt McCormick

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Top Ten Myths about Belief in God

1. Myth: Without God, life has no meaning.

There are 1.2 billion Chinese who have no predominant religion, and 1 billion people in India who are predominantly Hindu. And 65% of Japan's 127 million people claim to be non-believers. It is laughable to suggest that none of these billions of people are leading meaningful lives.

2. Myth: Prayer works.

Numerous studies have now shown that remote, blind, inter-cessionary prayer has no effect whatsoever of the health or well-being of subject's health, psychological states, or longevity. Furthermore, we have no evidence to support the view that people who wish fervently in their heads for things that they want get those things at any higher rate than people who do not.

3. Myth: Atheists are less decent, less moral, and overall worse people than believers.

There are hundreds of millions of non-believers on the planet living normal, decent, moral lives. They love their children, care about others, obey laws, and try to keep from doing harm to others just like everyone else. In fact, in predominately non-believing countries such as in northern Europe, measures of societal health such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, education, homicide, suicide, gender equality, and political coercion are better than they are in believing societies.

4. Myth: Belief in God is compatible with the descriptions, explanations and products of science.

In the past, every supernatural or paranormal explanation of phenomena that humans believed turned out to be mistaken; science has always found a physical explanation that revealed that the supernatural view was a myth. Modern organisms evolved from lower life forms, they weren't created 6,000 years ago in the finished state. Fever is not caused by demon possession. Bad weather is not the wrath of angry gods. Miracle claims have turned out to be mistakes, frauds, or deceptions. So we have every reason to conclude that science will continue to undermine the superstitious worldview of religion.

5. Myth: We have immortal souls that survive the death of the body.

We have mountains of evidence that makes it clear that our consciousness, our beliefs, our desires, our thoughts all depend upon the proper functioning of our brains our nervous systems to exist. So when the brain dies, all of these things that we identify with the soul also cease to exist. Despite the fact that billions of people have lived and died on this planet, we do not have a single credible case of someone's soul, or consciousness, or personality continuing to exist despite the demise of their bodies. Allegations of spirit chandlers, psychics, ghost stories, and communications with the dead have all turned out to be frauds, deceptions, mistakes, and lies.

6. Myth: If there is no God, everything is permitted. Only belief in God makes people moral.

Consider the billions of people in China, India, and Japan above. If this claim was true, none of them would be decent moral people. So Ghandi, the Buddha, and Confucius, to name only a few were not moral people on this view, not to mention these other famous atheists: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, John Stuart Mill, Galileo, George Bernard Shaw, Gloria Steinam, James Madison, John Adams, and so on.

7. Myth: Believing in God is never a root cause of significant evil.

The counter examples of cases where it was someone's belief in God that was the direct justification for their perpetrated horrendous evils on humankind are too numerous to mention.

8. Myth: The existence of God would explain the origins of the universe and humanity.

All of the questions that allegedly plague non-God attempts to explain our origins--why are we here, where are we going, what is the point of it all, why is the universe here--still apply to the faux explanation of God. The suggestion that God created everything does not make it any clearer to us where it all came from, how he created it, why he created it, where it isall going. In fact, it raises even more difficult mysteries: how did God, operating outside the confines of space, time, and natural law "create" or "build" a universe that has physical laws? We have no precedent and maybe no hope of answering or understanding such a possibility. What does it mean to say that some disembodied, spiritual being who knows everything and has all power, "loves" us, or has thoughts, or goals, or plans? How could such a being have any sort of personal relationship with beings like us?

9. Myth: Even if it isn't true, there's no harm in my believing in God anyway.

People's religious views inform their voting, how they raise their children, what they think is moral and immoral, what laws and legislation they pass, who they are friends and enemies with, what companies they invest in, where they donate to charities, who they approve and disapprove of, who they are willing to kill or tolerate, what crimes they are willing to commit, and which wars they are willing to fight. How could any reasonable person think that religious beliefs are insignificant.

10: Myth: There is a God.

Common Criticisms of Atheism (and Why They’re Mistaken)

1. You can’t prove atheism.You can never prove a negative, so atheism requires as much faith as religion.

Atheists are frequently accosted with this accusation, suggesting that in order for non-belief to be reasonable, it must be founded on deductively certain grounds. Many atheists within the deductive atheology tradition have presented just those sorts of arguments, but those arguments are often ignored. But more importantly, the critic has invoked a standard of justification that almost none of our beliefs meet. If we demand that beliefs are not justified unless we have deductive proof, then all of us will have to throw out the vast majority of things we currently believe—oxygen exists, the Earth orbits the Sun, viruses cause disease, the 2008 summer Olympics were in China, and so on. The believer has invoked one set of abnormally stringent standards for the atheist while helping himself to countless beliefs of his own that cannot satisfy those standards. Deductive certainty is not required to draw a reasonable conclusion that a claim is true.

As for requiring faith, is the objection that no matter what, all positions require faith?Would that imply that one is free to just adopt any view they like?Religiousness and non-belief are on the same footing?(they aren’t).If so, then the believer can hardly criticize the non-believer for not believing. Is the objection that one should never believe anything on the basis of faith?Faith is a bad thing?That would be a surprising position for the believer to take, and, ironically, the atheist is in complete agreement.

2. The evidence shows that we should believe.

If in fact there is sufficient evidence to indicate that God exists, then a reasonable person should believe it. Surprisingly, very few people pursue this line as a criticism of atheism. But recently, modern versions of the design and cosmological arguments have been presented by believers that require serious consideration. Many atheists cite a range of reasons why they do not believe that these arguments are successful. If an atheist has reflected carefully on the best evidence presented for God’s existence and finds that evidence insufficient, then it’s implausible to fault them for irrationality, epistemic irresponsibility, or for being obviously mistaken.Given that atheists are so widely criticized, and that religious belief is so common and encouraged uncritically, the chances are good that any given atheist has reflected more carefully about the evidence.

3. You should have faith.

Appeals to faith also should not be construed as having prescriptive force the way appeals to evidence or arguments do. The general view is that when a person grasps that an argument is sound, that imposes an epistemic obligation of sorts on her to accept the conclusion. One person’s faith that God exists does not have this sort of inter-subjective implication. Failing to believe what is clearly supported by the evidence is ordinarily irrational. Failure to have faith that some claim is true is not similarly culpable. At the very least, having faith, where that means believing despite a lack of evidence or despite contrary evidence is highly suspect. Having faith is the questionable practice, not failing to have it.

4. Atheism is bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing.

These accusations have been dealt with countless times. But let’s suppose that they are correct. Would they be reasons to reject the truth of atheism? They might be unpleasant affects, but having negative emotions about a claim doesn’t provide us with any evidence that it is false. Imagine upon hearing news about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki someone steadfastly refused to believe it because it was bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing. Suppose we refused to believe that there is an AIDS epidemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa on the same grounds.

5.Atheism is bad for you.Some studies in recent years have suggested that people who regularly attend church, pray, and participate in religious activities are happier, live longer, have better health, and less depression.

First, these results and the methodologies that produced them have been thoroughly criticized by experts in the field.Second, it would be foolish to conclude that even if these claims about quality of life were true, that somehow shows that there is theism is correct and atheism is mistaken.What would follow, perhaps, is that participating in social events like those in religious practices are good for you, nothing more.There are a number of obvious natural explanations.Third, it is difficult to know the direction of the causal arrow in these cases.Does being religious result in these positive effects, or are people who are happier, healthier, and not depressed more inclined to participate in religions for some other reasons?Fourth, in a number of studies atheistic societies like those in northern Europe scored higher on a wide range of society health measures than religious societies.

Given that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the world’s population, and that religious governments and ideals have held sway globally for thousands of years, believers will certainly lose in a contest over “who has done more harm,” or “which ideology has caused more human suffering.”It has not been atheism because atheists have been widely persecuted, tortured, and killed for centuries nearly to the point of extinction.

Sam Harris has argued that the problem with these regimes has been that they became too much like religions.“Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag, and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”

7.Atheists are harsh, intolerant, and hateful of religion.

Sam Harris has advocated something he calls “conversational intolerance.”For too long, a confusion about religious tolerance has led people to look the other way and say nothing while people with dangerous religious agendas have undermined science, the public good, and the progress of the human race.There is no doubt that people are entitled to read what they choose, write and speak freely, and pursue the religions of their choice.But that entitlement does not guarantee that the rest of us must remain silent or not verbally criticize or object to their ideas and their practices, especially when they affect all of us.Religious beliefs have a direct affect on who a person votes for, what wars they fight, who they elect to the school board, what laws they pass, who they drop bombs on, what research they fund (and don’t), which social programs they fund (and don’t), and a long list of other vital, public matters.Atheists are under no obligation to remain silent about those beliefs and practices that urgently need to be brought into the light and reasonably evaluated.

Real respect for humanity will not be found by indulging your neighbor’s foolishness, or overlooking dangerous mistakes.Real respect is found in disagreement.The most important thing we can do for each other is disagree vigorously and thoughtfully so that we can all get closer to the truth.

8.Science is as much a religious ideology as religion is.

At their cores, religions and science have a profound difference.The essence of religion is sustaining belief in the face of doubts, obeying authority, and conforming to a fixed set of doctrines.By contrast, the most important discovery that humans have ever made is the scientific method.The essence of that method is diametrically opposed to religious ideals:actively seek out disconfirming evidence.The cardinal virtues of the scientific approach are to doubt, analyze, critique, be skeptical, and always be prepared to draw a different conclusion if the evidence demands it.